


Food of the Damned

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fae!Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hannibal Fae AU, written as the result of a conversation between myself and fullofstoryshapes/SecondStarOnTheLeft. </p><p>Hannibal is Fae and Will doesn't realise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food of the Damned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts).



**Food of the Damned**

 

When Will Graham first meets Dr. Hannibal Lecter he finds him quietly striking. There is something in his face – some odd twist of features – that stops him from looking away, but it is nothing more than that. Where he has become used to matching other people’s voices and tones, body language and meaning, Dr. Lecter matches his instead. He finds himself willingly agreeing to dinner with the man.

 

* * *

 

The food is exquisite. Pork, the Doctor says, pulled pork from the shoulder of the sow, and the singly soft flesh of one of her piglets. When Will asks where the Doctor gets his meat, how he chooses his meat, the Doctor’s smile is almost feral.

“ _I ask which was loudest before the slaughter.”_

Will feels shivers down his back and knows it is not entirely horror at the thought.

 

* * *

 

When the cases he is asked to consult on become too much Will finds himself migrating back to Dr. Lecter’s office. The room is dimly lit and peaceful; rich dark wood, the soft-warm scent of books both new and old, the scent of softly clean furniture, and those of the small plants – lilies, orchids, a single _rafflesia_ – around the edge of the room. Will likes it there, likes how apart and distinct it is from the cases he works, a completely separate world.

 

* * *

 

He notes, of course, how the good Doctor flinches slightly, when he goes to shake Will’s hand, one visit, and his palm presses against the still-soft red blood in the creases of his palm. He’d had to shoot someone that day, and had been so close, as the bullet sang home, as to be sprayed by it.

Dr. Lecter’s hands are gentle as they help him wash it off, as the water in the bowl tinges pink, pink as the strawberry sorbet Dr. Lecter made once, and Will wonders at the oddness of a Doctor once of medicine, flinching at blood. He asks then, at last, why the good Doctor stopped practicing medicine of the body, and chose, instead, to move to the mind.

_“I killed someone. Or rather, I failed to save someone.”_

In someone as pragmatic as Dr. Lecter the simple reason seems almost wrong. Will says nothing.

 

* * *

 

The hospital where Dr. Lecter once worked is loud, and smells of blood and disinfectant; rich coppery redness overlaid by clear chemical scents, washing out the purity of the iron-rich blood. He finds, quietly and easily enough, someone who had worked with the good Doctor, ask what they thought of Lecter, why they think he left. They have no answers, but they do say something odd.

_“He always had a thing about blood, Lecter. Covered his hands with gloves anywhere near blood even when he wouldn’t be touching the wound.”_

 

* * *

 

That night Will remembers – more dreams really – a story his grandmother once told him of the Fair Folk, of how, for all they love bloodshed, only a few can touch it. The Ly Erg for one. Morrigan’s daughters another. In Scotland and on the Continent the Trow could, sometimes. But other Fae would drown in the iron, its rich redness, its concentration of iron, though not perfectly pure as the cold forged metal, anathema to them, killing, slowly.

 

* * *

 

Will notices the small bandage on Dr. Lecter’s hand the next day.

 _“Cut my hand sharpening a pencil, it’s nothing_.”

For the first time, Will doesn’t believe him.

 

* * *

 

Things change, in their meetings. Where Hannibal first mimicked Will, set him at ease, he pushes Will now to mimic back. Will does not want to, but he cannot help it, and starts noticing odd trends in his mind, trends he can’t account for through his usual empathy.

 

* * *

 

This shows one dinner, wondering on the nature of people. The meat is duck breast; skin crisped perfectly, vegetables soft yet flavoursome, the rich wine a perfect complement.

_“Sociopaths, Psychopaths, Narcissists, Empaths like you. What do you think I am, Will?”_

It is a moment before he responds, biting, chewing, swallowing down the piece of meat.

_“I don’t think you’re human.”_

 

* * *

 

Where before Will’s candour might have allowed him to phrase it better, to say it in a way that did not so plainly express his belief in what Dr. Lecter might be, now it trapped him into truths. Will is almost certain it is because of his empathy, mimicking the good ( _or maybe not so good_ ) Doctor’s mindset, but truth was not one he expected. Doctors of the mind had to be able to keep secrets, and it is hard to keep secrets without lies.

Will wonders again at what Dr. Hannibal Lecter might be.

 

* * *

 

It is Will’s turn to host dinner, at last, and he is prepared. As the salmon bakes in the oven, into smoked and spiced softness he places small iron nails around the house, from the front door to the dining room, to the kitchen to the bathroom. He tucks one, just one, into his pocket, for all his empathy is telling him he should flinch at its cold touch.

 

* * *

 

He watches Dr. Lecter when he arrives, measures the careful, subtle distance kept between the Doctor and the small hidden pieces of iron.

He steps close to Will though, to shake his hand, and though he flexes his fingers and subtly dusts the rust from his fingers he gives no other reaction.

 

* * *

 

When the man is gone Will goes back and checks the nails. They are, all of them, moved; the points angled toward the door the Doctor left by, the heads back toward the core of the house. He is certain Dr. Hannibal Lecter touched not one of them, and he is certain he could not have moved them all.

For all Will knows the Fair Folk are nothing but Fair Tales, he is nervous. He brings down his grandmothers books, and searches to find what else is anathema to Fae.

 

* * *

 

Will finds his empathy changing. Where before he was getting vague ideas of what it was that Dr. Lecter liked and disliked, it is now pushing through and affecting him directly. Like the truth forced unwillingly from his lips, like the growing fear of iron, he finds himself plotting ways of killing people, killing people as they have been in the cases, and of eating them.

His nightmares, bad enough already, worsen.

 

* * *

 

He is sick three times that night, and his vomit tastes of blood.

 

* * *

 

When he goes to see Dr. Lecter, (“ _Hannibal, you may call me that Will, if we are not utterly patient and doctor. Hannibal”_ ) the man is leaning forward in his chair now, eyes bright, but still that odd dark maroon, that he’d first mistook for brown. The red tint almost dancing in them makes such a belief impossible now.

The distance between them shrinks, Will, without meaning to, mimicking Hannibal’s posture, both of them leaning forward in their seats, elbows on knees, feet occasionally tapping to the dance of words and hidden meanings they now play.

 

* * *

 

He ponders his theory aloud to Beverly in the lab the next day, expecting to be laughed at. She obliges, but not mockingly. She seems almost afraid, laughing to try to relax.

 _“Could the homicidal tendencies come from combining Dr. Lecter **with** the cases?”_ she asks. “ _Not just Dr. Lecter alone?”_

Will doesn’t know, but hopes so, and asks Crawford if he could take a break from cases to see.

He is given one week.

 

* * *

 

Will does not look for proof. Will does not even visit the good ( _not so good,_ his mind whispers, _not so good, at all_ ) Doctor.

Will researches. All his grandmother’s books and journals are hauled down, he even visits her grave, even remembers her last words as she faded in hospital after a heart attack.

“ _Not a heart attack. Elf-shot, my boy. Cursing me to fade like this, after it strikes, and not die on my feet against them.”_

His parents said she was going mad, the doctors (ones of the body, not of the mind) suggested she might need sedatives, or even other medicines to calm her mind. Will’s grandmother was still sharp then, and her refusal to see the _head-shrinks_ was loud and cutting, brutal and final.

“ _Elf-shot,”_ She whispered to Will, once they’d left. “ _Beneath my pillow, in my slipper. They’ll have hidden it in something which is **mine** , so I cannot escape it. It will kill me.”_

She had died, two weeks later, faded away just as she said.

Will had found a charm clutched in her hand, rowan and iron and white oak, bound together with a blood-stained ribbon. When clearing out her house he found a single stone arrowhead, tucked inside her pillowcase.

He takes to carrying them both with him, one in each pocket.

 

* * *

 

He is sick three times, at the end of the week, and, again, his vomit tastes of blood.

 

* * *

 

His nightmares were still present during his week away from work, and he tells Jack Crawford so, tells Beverly, and Alana too. He does not tell them the beginning of the plan taking shape in his head, one of salt and iron, blood and rowan, and a certain end to Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

 

* * *

 

The plan goes into play the next week, the good ( _not good at all_ ) Doctor invited for dinner, to make up for neglecting his friendship so much.

The meat is pork, from a sow and her piglets, smoked by Will, over burning rowan and oak, salted with sea salt, and cooked in an iron dish, in an iron oven, some of Will’s own blood cooked into the sauce.

Iron, his mind reminds him, is deadly to Fae.

 

* * *

 

Before the Doctor arrives Will feels ill, and is sick, three times, in the downstairs bathroom.

When he looks in the bowl, before he flushes, he sees it is red as blood.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the meal Dr. Lecter is oddly languid, relaxed back in his chair in a way he has never been, as Will brings over the desserts the good ( _not good at all_ ) Doctor had brought. They eat quietly, the odd, cool _crème brûlée_ an entirely different experience to what Will had expected from it.

He clears the table, and returns with rope.

 

* * *

 

When Dr. Lecter feels the rope – red ribbons, iron wires, twisted rowan bark fibres – touching his ankle he hisses.

And then he laughs.

Will’s hands are shaking as he ties the good ( _he is **laughing** at you_ ) Doctor to the chair.

 

* * *

 

“ _Will, Will, Will. Did you figure out what I am at last?”_

 

* * *

 

Hannibal seems to revel in Will’s uncertainty, as he stands before the bound Doctor. Dr. Lecter’s eyes calculating, his face smiling. Will’s expression twists, and his voice is bitingly sardonic in a way he has only ever heard from Hannibal, talking to a stalking patient, before.

“ _Fair folk. Good Neighbours. But you’re neither, really, are you? Pretty terms made to keep you from being angered, but it’s not stopped you killing people.”_

 

* * *

 

Hannibal laughs again, and a glamour falls away. Where before his face merely held the eye, now Will cannot look away. It has the ashy tone of Trow, and the pale hair, and the agile-but-stubby fingers, but in Hannibal’s shoes are hooves, and from his waistband comes a tail, bovine, flicking back and forth like a cat’s.

 _“Huldra?”_ Will asks, “ _Or Trow?”_

Hannibal is smiling as he replies.

“ _A bit of both_.”

 

* * *

 

Will is pacing, back and forth, back and forth, in front of the chair to which Dr. Lecter is tied, the iron knife heavy in his hand.

He flinches when his thumb strokes the metal, and the blade falls with a clang.

 

* * *

 

“ _What did you do to me?”_

“ _You did it to yourself. Did you find my food adequate, Will? It may not be of the courts, but it works the same, in the end.”_

 

* * *

 

Will is staring, the red blister on his thumb, the knife on the floor, Hannibal’s face, easy and smiling.

 

* * *

 

 _“_ _Fae food **addicts** , it doesn’t… It can’t…”_

_“It can. It has.”_

 

* * *

 

Will takes up the knife by its wooden handle. Even if he cannot touch the blade anymore, he can still use it as a weapon.

 

* * *

 

“ _What am I now?”_

_“I’m not sure. Far Darrig, maybe, with your luck. Clurichaun, with your waiting drinking problems, possibly. Gancanagh for your mimicry, perhaps.”_

 

* * *

 

There is silence, for several long moments.

 

* * *

 

 _“_ _I don’t want this. I… no. Make it **stop**.”_

_“There are only two ways to stop it.”_

Hannibal’s voice is soft, soothing. Will remembers that Fae cannot lie.

“ _What are they?”_ Will needs this answer, this possible freedom. “ _Tell me!”_

Hannibal laughs.

 

* * *

 

It is a while before he stops.

 

* * *

 

“ _Stab me,”_ Hannibal says, voice soft, almost seductive, entrancing, a quiet promise. _“Or stab yourself. There are stories – I was told them as a child – that if a Fae-made kills the one who made them they revert to what they were, or would be. If that fails, an iron knife will kill you, just as it would a human.”_

 

* * *

 

Will weighs the options. In one, he is a suicide. His friends grieve him, but he is gone, and he is free. Cases he might have helped on may go unsolved.

In the other he is a murderer. He might manage to hide it, and still work his cases, but he would be Fae, and he would not know which precisely he was.

Will weighs the knife in his hands.

 

* * *

 

“ _You would let me kill you?”_

The doubt is clear in his voice, and Hannibal’s head tilts backward, exposing his ashen throat, a pale vein jumping near his jaw.

“ _If you think you can manage it.”_

 

* * *

 

Will remembers the one he’d shot – not dead, but his shoulder struck, his ragged breathing as Will kept pressure on it, as Beverly had watched him while they waited for Crawford and the others.

 

* * *

 

“ _It’s easier if you find the veins with your fingers, with us. They are not always the visible ones that you wish to go for_.”

 

* * *

 

Will steps forward, unflinchingly. Hannibal is inviting this, asking for this, offering this. And it might make him free.

Hannibal starts, slightly, at his touch, smiles, just a little, breathes out, “ _Gancanagh_.” And, after a moment more, half-in-awe, _“I made a **Gancanagh**.”_

Will’s voice is quick, bladed.

“ _What?”_

Hannibal blinks, eyes wide, happy, his face open for once. “ _Your kind is thought to be extinct.”_

 

* * *

 

Will’s heart is hammering, and he raises the knife. He does not want to be whatever a _Gancanagh_ may be, he does not want to be the Fae Hannibal Lecter has _made_ , he wants to be Will Graham, human, and nothing more.

The knife slices, cleanly across the ashen throat, and quickly the crimson line turns bloody-blue, inky ichor seeping out and down, in almost beautiful pulses of leaving life.

As the life leaves Hannibal’s eyes, Will does not feel anything change.

 

* * *

 

He is kneeling on the floor, when the hand touches his shoulder. He is behind Hannibal’s chair, one hand resting on the back of it, the knife somewhere beside him. He does not react.

“You should come with me. That illusion will only last so long.”

Will chokes on a sob.

“You _lied_. Fae can’t _lie_.”

He can hear Hannibal’s smile when he speaks. “No. No we can't. But my illusions can.”

 

* * *

 

Will follows Hannibal. There is nothing else he can do; he has lost. At Hannibal’s house things are explained to him. He _is_ Gancanagh, as the illusion had said. He can make people like him, half through mimicry, and half through another magic, which inclines people to him. He can touch red, deal with blood, but not iron. Not rowan. Not white oak.

Gingerly, by the threads, Will takes out his grandmother’s charm.

“Ah,” Hannibal says, sounding almost pleased. “That’s why your change took so long.”

 

* * *

 

When he is certain Hannibal is sleeping, Will sneaks out of the room. Hannibal’s door is shut, and he can’t be certain, so he climbs out the window, drops to the ground, and tries to find the edges of glamour he knows all Fae can touch.

They slide around him like a cloak, and he walks, unseen, out of town, toward home. He slips onto a bus, unnoticed, and walks the last few miles. It is three am, and his breath mists in front of his face, but he cannot feel the cold.

 

* * *

 

Will fetches down his grandmother’s books. He remembers that they mentioned Gancanagh, once, on one page, in one book. Not extinct, they’d said, but one lone specimen alive, all others gone.

Will finds the page.

 

* * *

 

_Gancanaghs are solitary Fae, and it is said there is only one remaining. Most stories say they are very attractive, and known for seducing young women, and are often seen with a pipe, which it does not smoke, as the inhalation is painful for them. Those seduced by Gancanagh will always die soon after he leaves; addicted to his touch, when his attention wavers – as it always will – they will waste away to nothing._

 

* * *

 

It is simple for Will then, to find the knife downstairs, by the empty chair with the hanging ropes.

He does not intend to live.

 

* * *

 


End file.
